“You’ll probably feel my boot,” said I.
“Very prettily expressed,” said the General Nuisance. Thereon he seated himself on a corner of the breakfast-table, and seemed certain to capsize the bacon-dish every time he swung his legs. “Most incisive and direct.”
“Will be,” said I, not so irrelevantly as it may appear.
“I’ll prescribe for your disease,” said he.
“You can go to hell,” said I.
“Well,” said he suavely, “my prescription is in that direction too. I want you to go and drown yourself. You’re in love.”
“Who told you?” I shouted.
How singular it was that I had not had the faintest suspicion till that moment that love was the name of my disease! But when the General Nuisance clapped a name upon my malady, not for an instant did I doubt him.
“Hard that a man of your fine presence should suffer from hallucinations,” said that glibly hateful person. “Must feel pretty squiffy. You go and drown yourself, my pilgrim. Quite the nicest death in summer. Water beautifully warm. Besides, you’ve got a pretext in your l.b.w. Jury’ll bring in a ‘temporarily insane’ without any coarse remarks. Now then, go away and die. And what an awfully swagger corpse you’d make. They’re not always so well nourished and full of blood, you ostentatious idiot.”
“Who told you I was in love?” said I.